


The Woods

by QuincytheHen



Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Horror, Cults, Eldritch, Gen, Horror, Original Universe, POV First Person, Supernatural Elements, ish not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:27:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21676003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuincytheHen/pseuds/QuincytheHen
Summary: Go in clusters, my grandmother told me. Stay in clusters and it will be alright.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	The Woods

Go in clusters, my grandmother told me. Stay in clusters and it will be alright.

Our town had always been divided into clusters. They were all similar, in and of themselves-- matching aesthetics, ages, sizes, interests. We traveled everywhere in clusters, slept in clusters. 

Stay in clusters, the elderly told us, and do not go out into the woods. Never look at the woods.

The forest surrounded us. When the sun was out, it remained dark and dense, as if the trees siphoned the light from the air and choked it in its branches. When one looks into the forest, one stops listening to silence and can hear the deafening, numb buzz of darkness and it is frightening.

We go in clusters, and we keep our eyes down. We do not question what is in the woods. Questioning leads to thought. Thought to belief. Belief to the birth of the questioned.

My cluster was small, but enough. Two was not enough. One of you couldn’t be trusted. Three wasn’t enough. There were too many ways to bring your cluster down. Four was too easily split.

Five was the lowest. Any less and you wouldn’t survive.

There were five of us. There was I, Naich, my sister, Belli, my friend, Saveur, Saveur’s younger brother, Eriken, our friend, Fintin, and the local rhapsodist, Whih. 

No one knew what Whih was, other than their name was spoken like the wind on tree trunks, the sagging sound of a heavy stream over rock. Their clothes were thick, dense fabric that covered their face, with everything but the eyes exposed and turn downward like the rest of us. They sang in the local eateries all over town, smooth and sweet, a choir in one voice. I liked Whih. The elderly did not.

Our cluster was quiet. We did not do much. We traveled with Whih to their venues, ate at the eateries and sang along when the drink was enough to make us think we knew the words. We slept in my grandmother’s barn. Fintin gripped my hand tightly as we slept, and I kept my head on Belli’s lap. She laid her head on Saveur’s breast, and Eriken and Whih spread across our legs and hugged my belly tight enough to make breathing comfortingly strenuous.

To struggle to breathe is to cling to life. We were all clinging by our nails, even as we slept. 

Days were long in our town. Sometimes the hours in the sun, in our eye of the target of trees, felt like eons. Nights always lasted too long and not long enough. We were tired. We were all always tired.

It was night when the twins were born.

Saveur and Eriken’s mother had many children, though they had clusters of their own. I did not know their names, as they were not in my cluster. No one knew the names of those not in their family or circles, it was safer that way.

The night the twins were born, we went with Saveur and Eriken to their family home where their mother laid with the twins.

The sight was heinous. Their mother’s cluster was huddled, far back in a corner behind the birthbed, further than any cluster should be from a member of their group, holding each other and trembling. From their mother were the accursed creatures, strung together by one cord. They held hands, clutching too many fingers together, their fleshy pink bodies mashed together like sausage meat. And their mother wept. And overtop her weeping the twins wept too, their collective screaming echoing far into the night, a dissonant harmony that caused Whih to put their cloth-covered hands over their unseen ears and mewl, collapsing to their knees and babbling nonsense prayers to a god that had long since abandoned our tiny town.

Belli held Eriken, close to collapsing in her arms. Saveur stood, facing away from his mother. I could see his hands shake, even as I stared at the sight. Fintin looked to me and back at the woman and her abominations, and then said to me in a voice, low and haunted, “that is why the elders do not like twins.”  
Twins were cursed children, unable to form their own clusters. And so in the womb, they are punished. I hadn’t seen it for myself until then.  
“Mercy,” Whih cried out, “mercy, mercy! Please! I cannot. Make them stop, those horrid creatures, I cannot hear anything else! I fear I will never hear anything else again! Tell them to stop--”

Saveur bent down to Whih’s back, clasping his own hands over the rhapsodist’s, making soothing shushing noises as they continued to plead. Whih’s dark cloak, which obstructed their face, went darker with the thick tears rolling down their face.

The tinny sound of the baby’s tears grew ever louder, and I looked to them again, and could see their pinkish flesh warping, changing into something it was not-- hardened like stone, but mobile as flesh.The cord that connected them to their mother was slowly dissolving, and their eyes opened as one as their many-fingered hands wove tighter still, like the wicker of their bassinet that lay empty in the corner. We all turned our eyes, as seeing was manifestation, but we had all already thought about it, questioned it.

And thought birthed the questioned.

The twins, effectively crushing their mother and birthbed beneath their sudden weight, grew larger and larger, the size of men and yet bigger. They were still connected, legless and awkward, heads bulbous and eyes and mouths oozing as their collective screams and weepings grew ever louder with their collective lungs’ sudden increase in size. I cannot guarantee my cluster saw the same as I, but seeing Belli go pale and Eriken shutter like a leaf on the wind, to have Fintin grab my arm and Saveur force a screaming Whih to their feet, they all saw something equally horrifying.

Whih turned and fled first, screaming prayers and pleas into the night sky, wondering aloud to the nonpresent stars if this was punishment for their blasphemous profession. Collectively, instinctively, we ran after Whih, all tripping and calling to them to slow down, reminding them of the rules with our precious breath. 

The twins-- the creature that was once twins, pursued. I had no will or bravery to look back to see how exactly a creature like that would move, just that the hideous cries shook the ground along with its step. 

Whih was maddened by the screaming, even more frightened by the pursuing devil. They ran further and faster, surpassing my grandmother’s barn, where the chickens and cattle smelled rancid hot fear in the air and bellowed their own panic as we and the creature passed. The twins, hungry as we presumed them to be, did not stop even as we passed my grandmother’s farm, nor did it pause for a moment when we passed the outskirts of the busy downtown streets, lined with shops and eateries most frequently visited by the residents of our town. The damned children only ventured forth, screaming and weeping after us, their battle cry a mockery of what human infants use to cry for help.

Whih bounded and flew over rocks and fallen logs as the barrier from the town to the intense blackness of the woods outstretched, and while I could not see the faces of my cluster, those who hadn’t lost themselves in terror, I knew they thought the same as I.

We were doomed. 

Either we die by the hands of the beast, or the hands of the woods, and it seemed like Whih had made the choice for us all. They bounded and disappeared beyond the wood’s shadows, where their crying abruptly stopped, lost to the hum of the darkness.

One by one, I saw my cluster follow suit, with not even the crunch of the leaves below to mark their mad dash to their graves.

I was mid-breath, when I followed them into the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> I like this story a lot. I've had it sort of sitting in my drafts, completed, for several years now, so it's nice to finally let other people see it for real!   
> I may or may not flesh out and develop this universe further, depending on whether or not I can really get my thoughts together about it.  
> Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoy this piece, be sure to follow me on twitter @quincythehen to see more from me, and maybe check out my commissions, which are pinned on that page. If you made it this far, and are looking to get a commission done, please include the words "The Rhapsodist" somewhere in your inquiry for an extra 10% discount, just as thanks for your support.


End file.
